VWBB - Shivans

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- FreeSpace 1/2 Discussion (http://volitionwatch.papageorgefamily/vwbb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=33)
-- Shivans (http://volitionwatch.papageorgefamily/vwbb/showthread.php?threadid=1387)

Posted by IronMajor on 08-06-2001 02:51 PM:

As people should know sound doesn't travel in space (In space no one can hear you scream!:eek. So the screaming noises are not actually coming from shivan craft. Where are they coming from? Aside from the fact that FS2 wouldn't be as fun without sound, there is speculation that in the future a ships computer would artifically create the sounds of battle so the pilot could use all his senses to fight and to avoid the disorentation that silience could cause.

Oh, and I tried the robot theroy in another thread and was told, by Shrike I think, that the big [V] said these are real Shivans with cybernetic implants.

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Posted by venom2506 on 08-06-2001 05:29 PM:

Re: Re: Woah, just read all 15 pages! Everyone's out of ideas? You want ideas?

quote:
Originally posted by joek

Sounds good. Look what the Air Force is trying to do now with remote piloted fighters and we're no where near millions of years old.

That also sounds good. I mean so many sci-fi references theorize about future times where we've advanced so far as to have robots to do all our dirty work and we just sit back and enjoy life. And look at all the death and suffering in war. Any species/civilization that could build robotic fighters who could fight as well as or better than their own citizenry would surely send those robots off to fight other alien life forms.

I like this idea as it gives a good reason for the Lucifer having shields but no other Shivan cap ships.

Joe.

Yeah, all that sounds good. Only one thing worries me a little with those ideas. That's a way of thinking that humans would have, but I'm not sure all sentient species would share the same way of thinking we have. I mean some armies, even today, don't hesitate to sacrify soldiers, to use kamikazes, so even if they're really rare cases, nothing proves that for another species that way of behaving could be common, and even an honnor, something like that -even if I doubt shivan know the concept of honour-.

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Posted by venom2506 on 08-06-2001 05:31 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by IronMajor
As people should know sound doesn't travel in space (In space no one can hear you scream!:eek. So the screaming noises are not actually coming from shivan craft. Where are they coming from? Aside from the fact that FS2 wouldn't be as fun without sound, there is speculation that in the future a ships computer would artifically create the sounds of battle so the pilot could use all his senses to fight and to avoid the disorentation that silience could cause.

yeah, that's what I always thought, sounds (not only in freespace, but in any space movie or game) are computer synthetized, mainly for a better situation awareness.

Posted by Phantom on 08-06-2001 06:56 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by IronMajor
As people should know sound doesn't travel in space (In space no one can hear you scream!:eek. So the screaming noises are not actually coming from shivan craft. Where are they coming from? Aside from the fact that FS2 wouldn't be as fun without sound, there is speculation that in the future a ships computer would artifically create the sounds of battle so the pilot could use all his senses to fight and to avoid the disorentation that silience could cause.

Why would a computer artificially create a non existant scream?
I can understand why it MIGHT do it for explosions, so that the pilot
would know the direction it came from, but the scream idea just
does not make sense.

Posted by venom2506 on 08-06-2001 07:41 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Phantom

Why would a computer artificially create a non existant scream?
I can understand why it MIGHT do it for explosions, so that the pilot
would know the direction it came from, but the scream idea just
does not make sense.

Coz maybe it's based on radiations and other things like that, or coz it sounds like that in atmosphere.
otehrwise, why it should make the sound of the fighter is obvious. If you hear a ship behind you, you'll maneuver wildly to avoid it, if you don't hear it, you do nothing and you die... The difference of sounds could also be explain by the fact you need to make the difference between friend or foe.

Posted by Xaphod_x on 08-07-2001 03:26 AM:

it's a nice idea, but we all know that it's just there because it feels right for it to be there.

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Posted by Londo Molari on 08-07-2001 01:08 PM:

yeah, without sounds, it just wont be fun

but we're not discussing realism of freespace ... cuz then we;d get into why throttle controls velocity instead of acceleration.

as for the aliens encountered being robots, I think they would use robots to fight there wars because they DO think like us... they may not be so alien...after all they have similar ship classes as us... they use similar tactics...they may be a lot more like us than we think....

and the fact their tech is only a bit better is probably because these are their oldest ships, sent out perhaps thousands of years ago...whats coming out fresh from the construction yards (or whatever shivans have) could be something we have no chance against.

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Posted by Xaphod_x on 08-07-2001 05:09 PM:

Shivans are more similar to us than u might think.

quote:
because they DO think like us...

Yeah! It was mentioned earlier that the Vasudans maybe didn't use a carrier/figher mentality until they observed our tactics...

But the Shivans have used it from day 1.

Also, shivan fighters are forward thrust, like ours, have afterburners that work the same as ours, and use a gun/missile/beam weapon system, like we do. They also have ships that do the same jobs as ours (they have fighters, bombers, freighters, transports, gas miners, cruisers, corvettes, destroyers, and collossus-sized super destroyers). The fact that there are shivan freighters and containers shows that they use and transport cargo, like we do.. in fact it shows that they do it in THE SAME WAY that we do.

When shivans want to take out a capital ship, they don't use some alien thing, they send in bombers, like we do - Bombers which fire similar bombs to our bombers. When their are fighers to destroy, they send in interceptors and space superiority fighters, like we do. They don't seem to operate in the nebula significantly better than we do. (if you stop, then they don't come and attack you.. in fact sometimes it seems like you can see them before they see you)

Looking at every shivan ship, there is a human or vasudan counterpart, apart from the wierd rotating thing that you find on the special ops mission, but when fred2 calls it a comm-relay, it shows another similarity.

Thinking about it, I'd say pretty much all of their ships are designed to come in and attack using the front of the craft, the same as ours.. I just think it's a strange thing for a race with so many arms that can effectively operate in any direction to do. Shivan tech is more powerful to ours.. but it isn't different or alien in any largely significant way. It's no more alien than the Orient or Arabia. In fact, I'd say less so.

Mentioning kamikaze fighters, thinking about it, the way the shivans operate is very similar to the way the Japanese operated in WW2 - attacking planes, transports, etc, destroying rather than holding land.

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Posted by venom2506 on 08-07-2001 05:26 PM:

yeah, that's true... but what else do you want them to use if you want the game to be fun? That always bothered be, that they have the same things than we have (sentry guns, cargos)... I tired to find a work out for that. I couldn't find any that would be fun to play against

Posted by Londo Molari on 08-08-2001 02:47 AM:

yeah...but we gotta pretend that everything we see is for a reason and not just cuz the programmers had any restrictions... otherwise we could be questioning everything

I think they wanted shivans to be a bit similar to us... they could have done some REALLY alien things if they wanted.... maybe have a big ball that charges up and fires a very strong beam, in any direction... you know...a perfect sphere...symbol for perfection... maybe they could just send in a ship of telepath and mind control us.... or maybe they could cloak.... or maybe you know ... the list goes on and on

Posted by Xaphod_x on 08-08-2001 03:41 AM:

The point is that there are lots of really alien things they could have done with the shivans that would still have worked in the engine.. but they didn't.

Shivan ships differ from ours in only a few ways:

** They are designed differently (spikey).

** They are generally better armoured and armed than our ships (though the armaments are of the same type as ours).

** They had shields, and we didn't.

So is the "shivan" we see in the cutscene a real shivan or just a sentry robot?

Probably the latter. Not only does it seem constructed, but it also seems constructed *specifically* to kill effectively and be able to move around in three dimensions.

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Posted by Alphakiller on 08-08-2001 04:47 AM:

Actually, Xaphod, no. If you look at the FS2 tech room, you'll see that's what a Shivan looks like, not to mention the GTI's research for the Hades would indicate they dissected a lot of shivans, and a lot of shivan ships, ergo that's not just a "construct" ... it could be a suit of armor, although perhaps one permanantly melded to their bodies. :shrug:

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Posted by Alphakiller on 08-08-2001 04:53 AM:

Re: Shivans are more similar to us than u might think.

quote:
Originally posted by Xaphod_x
Mentioning kamikaze fighters, thinking about it, the way the shivans operate is very similar to the way the Japanese operated in WW2 - attacking planes, transports, etc, destroying rather than holding land.

Uh, the hell no. "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" ring a bell? That's the term the Japanese government (Tojo's military dicatorship) used and it was their specific aim to conquer (not conquer to them, keep reading) and hold the majority of East Asia - "liberating" it from European rule and placing it under a Japanese one. The entire Pacific campaign to stop the Japanese was in fact attacking or bypassing and blockading held territory strongholds, all the way up to Okinawa, where the war ended, however, plans for an invasion of Japan - Operation Olympic - were being drawn up in 1945 because the Allies (until the use of nukes) believed the only way to force the Japanese to surrender would be to invade and hold their home territory.

... can you guess what my field of interest is?

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Posted by venom2506 on 08-08-2001 11:16 AM:

Re: Re: Shivans are more similar to us than u might think.

quote:
Originally posted by Alphakiller

Uh, the hell no. "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" ring a bell? That's the term the Japanese government (Tojo's military dicatorship) used and it was their specific aim to conquer (not conquer to them, keep reading) and hold the majority of East Asia - "liberating" it from European rule and placing it under a Japanese one. The entire Pacific campaign to stop the Japanese was in fact attacking or bypassing and blockading held territory strongholds, all the way up to Okinawa, where the war ended, however, plans for an invasion of Japan - Operation Olympic - were being drawn up in 1945 because the Allies (until the use of nukes) believed the only way to force the Japanese to surrender would be to invade and hold their home territory.

... can you guess what my field of interest is?

mmh... history? geopolitics? strategy? bah, you're good in the 3 domains it seems

Posted by Xaphod_x on 08-08-2001 03:07 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Alphakiller
Actually, Xaphod, no. If you look at the FS2 tech room, you'll see that's what a Shivan looks like, not to mention the GTI's research for the Hades would indicate they dissected a lot of shivans, and a lot of shivan ships, ergo that's not just a "construct" ... it could be a suit of armor, although perhaps one permanantly melded to their bodies.

When a monkey washed ashore on the coast of northern england, it was hung, because the locals believed it to be a spy.
By "construct" I wasn't simply referring to mechanical.
Also, we carry guns to shoot people. We don't have guns surgically implanted in our bodies. How the hell would a shivan evolve to have a beam in its head? Granted it would fight better, but as us humans have proved, brain power matters more, otherwise Lions would be Earth's dominant species.
The only reason we say a "shivan" is a shivan is because we encountered it on their ships.
If we did the same - genetically engineered Lions with guns in their heads and put them to guard our remote controlled ships, then some alien species found it, they would probably jump to the conclusion too.
Remember, the tech room says what the GTVA believe, not what is necessarily true.

I will conceed that my knowledge of the Japanese in WW2 is sketchy at best.
So the shivans didn't act like the Japanese... but they still didn't act particularly alien.. in FS1, their goal was to wipe us out, which they were doing rather effectively, using human-like tactics.
In FS2, they weren't trying to wipe us out, they were just trying to occupy us while they got to capella. Shivan tactics aren't particularly alien - they just aren't fighting for territory, which is what we normally do.

IMO the only truly unexplainable thing that the Shivans have done is destroy Capella, and just because we can't explain it doesn't mean it's particularly "alien".

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Posted by IronMajor on 08-09-2001 02:58 AM:

No one has figured out if Shivans have armored exoskeletons or some kind of powered armor. Placing some kind of cannon on an armored suit would be easy for them to do and make perfect sense. If they have an exoskeleton than it would be possible for them to graft on into the creature. Sure it would be invasive and irreversable, but hey their entire lives are devoted to combat and a gun implant linked to their brain would make life that much easier.

And believe me, if we had the technology to implant guns on our bodies we'd be doing it right now.
~

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Posted by Phantom on 08-09-2001 07:55 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by IronMajor
And believe me, if we had the technology to implant guns on our bodies we'd be doing it right now.
~

Who the hell would want to get a gun implanted onto their body? That
is insane!

Posted by venom2506 on 08-09-2001 12:22 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Phantom

Who the hell would want to get a gun implanted onto their body? That
is insane!

Right now, nobody (I hope). But several scie fie writers are consuders that this will be usual. Oh, I have a geart exemple: Warhammer 40000!

Posted by Xaphod_x on 08-09-2001 03:27 PM:

the point I'm making is that sentient species don't generally have weapons growing out of themselves.. They build and carry weapons. Sentient creatures don't generally have "their entire lives are devoted to combat" either.

Also, if "shivans" have been disected, then I think we would know if it's armour or just part of their body.

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Posted by venom2506 on 08-09-2001 04:37 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Xaphod_x
Sentient creatures don't generally have "their entire lives are devoted to combat" either.

Ok, sorry for the easy one, but... Do you have a lot of exemples in real life? We have humans and... humans... and... and... that's about all.
Scie fie talking, sentient creatures with entire lives devoted to combat : Kilrhaty (wing cp), Chaos and orks (warhammer 40000), I know nothing about B5, but shadows sounds this way too, and the list is very long so I'll stop that (just wander around in comic books and you'll get my point).

The Arachnids in Starship Troopers DO have weapons grown in their bodies (plasma bag, tanker bug). Zergs in Starcraft ( I don't see why this exemple would not be as relevant as any other, that's sci fie too) have weapons grown in thier bodies too (guardian, mutalisk, hydralisks and so on). Some REAL creatures do use thier bodies or their enviroment as throwing weapons (some kind of hedgehog of south america can send it's spines -funny btw-, some fish can send water to insects to make them fall in water so it can eat them -maybe shivans uses some kind of gaz layered in their ships as ammos for their plasma weapon, maybe they use a kind of chimic reaction like some fishes or insects -firefly- )

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